Poetry for building Fluency and the Freedom to Write

A favorite strategy to use with students is  poetry. Poetry should be taught all year not restricting poetry to the obligatory "April Poetry Month." Instead begin the school year immersing children in poetry; Acrostic, Cinquain, Free Verse, Haiku, Funny Poems, Nature Poems, and more. Read poetry aloud, choral read, act out poems, and have students share their own poems. Frequently remind students, "Hey, during Work on Writing, you could write a poem like this one!"  Poems can be a wonderful way to build fluency and work on writing. For some students it isn't as daunting as a whole story and there is greater freedom regarding conventions.
Use Squidoo to discover this collection of Free Websites with Interactive Poetry and Poem Creators for Teachers and Kids.

http://www.squidoo.com/k12interactivepoetry

October's Comprehension Strategy - Literacy Elements

Students should now have a basic understand of Compare/Contrast and Main Idea. A suggestion might be to have students still working on these during center rotations independently or in their summarizing journals. While walking in the halls I have noticed many charts and students work that are reflective of these strategies.

 

October’s Comprehension Strategy Focus is Literacy Elements this includes:

·         Author: What is the author trying to tell you in the story?
·         Setting
·         Characters & Character Traits
·         Theme: Why do you think the author wrote the story?
·          Illustrations: How do the illustrations support the story?
·         Style: What special words are used to see you see the story?
·         Heading
·         Index, Glossary, table of contents

Remember to use this strategy during read a louds during the week.

FAIR Parent Letter

Printing the Parent Letters for an entire class by following the directions below:

- Sign In with your Reading Level access

- Click the "Class Reports" tab

- Select the correct class

- Click the "Class Status Report"

- Scroll to the bottom of the report

- Click the "Show All Parent Letters" link

- Click the "Preview Report" button

 

A new window will open containing the Parent Letters for every student in your class in list-form.